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This writing was accepted for publication in the 84 page perfect-bound issue... Down in the Dirt magazine (v099) (the October 2011 Issue) You can also order this 5.5" x 8.5" issue as an ISSN# paperback book:						This writing also appears in this 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback “Symbols Manifest” Order this 6" x 9" ISBN# book:

Order this writing in the book Bleeding Heart Cadaver (a Down in the Dirt collection book)		get the 320 page September-December 2011 Down in the Dirt magazine issue collection 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

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Jackboot and Mary

John L. Campbell

    The rural lane wound through Eastern Connecticut, yellow signs warning of severe curves, decaying barns and shabby houses dotting the countryside. It had been a hard winter so far, bare gray trees reaching towards a pewter sky like skeletal fingers. A steel blue Cadillac appeared on the road, driving much too fast and hugging the outer right side of the asphalt as it came around the curve. It missed the figure walking there by less than a foot, and its horn blared sharply before the car vanished.
    Lou “Jackboot” Moran trudged along the gravel shoulder, head down, black wool cap pulled down over his eyebrows. At four-hundred pounds he looked like a green wall, shuffling along in a stained, olive green fatigue jacket. He didn’t notice the Cadillac, didn’t notice how close he’d just come to dying. One of his hands was shoved deep in a jacket pocket. The other dangled, swinging with each step, holding a five pound sledge from which blood still dripped.
    The trailer was a quarter mile back. Mary was inside on the floor.
    And on the walls, and on the ceiling.
    Amid the hot dog rolls of skin that was the back of his neck was a red and black tattoo of a swastika. The hand holding the sledge had a smaller swastika in the webbing between his thumb and index finger, and the letters H-E-I-L were tattooed across his knuckles. The hand was bloody, too, along with his coat, and his meaty face had a spray of crimson dots across it that was quickly freezing in the sharp December air.
    Another car rushed towards him, a big silver Buick packed with senior citizens headed for the Indian casino a few miles down the road. Going as fast as the caddy, this one hugged the center line as it hummed past, but the rush of air it pulled behind it still made him squint and try to tuck his head down deeper into his jacket. Jackboot plodded on, wheezing with his mouth open, breathing plumes of white and swinging his hammer.
    Mary had a smart mouth, and she didn’t know when to lay off.
    “Louie, you’re putting a dent in my mattress.”
    “Louie, you’re the dumbest dope dealer in New England.”
    “Louie, you smell like you pissed yourself.”
    “Louie, Nazi’s are fags.”
    “Louie, you got me pregnant.”
    Nope, didn’t know when to shut up, the worthless skank. She was quiet now, though.
    The road straightened out, with a snow-covered field across the blacktop on the right, and a tattered line of dead reeds on the left. Beyond was a frozen pond, frost-covered and white.
    Filthy trailer, dirty welfare whore who ran her mouth. Should have solved that problem weeks ago. A bitter wind rattled the tree limbs and burned against his exposed skin.
    “Louie,” Mary said. “Hey, Louie.”
    Jackboot stopped walking and looked left, out onto the pond. Her voice wasn’t in his head that time. She was there, out on the ice, as white as the frost under her feet. Except for her caved-in head, which was a bright red bloom.
    “Where do you think you’re going, fat ass?”
    Jackboot snarled and turned to face the pond, gripping the sledge tightly. How the hell had that dead bitch gotten here so fast? And now she had the balls to stand there – well, float, since her feet dangled a good foot above the ice – and act like he hadn’t shut her up?
    Mary laughed and flipped him off. “Yeah, fat boy. Can’t do nothin’ right, can you, Louie?”
    Jackboot shrieked something unintelligible and charged down the embankment, blundering through the reeds like a clumsy animal and out onto the ice. This was one bitch who needed more killing. His Doc Martens thudded on the frozen surface, frost crunching beneath them as he slid and ran towards her, arms pinwheeling.
    Mary didn’t move, just stood there dead with that stupid smile on her face, enraging him even more. Jackboot’s face was turning purple with exertion, his heart slamming in his chest, his breath coming in short wallops as he closed on her.
    Gonna kill you better this time, he thought, raising the sledge. Mary watched him come, didn’t cower or cry or try to hold up her hands to stop the hammer like she had a few minutes ago. He slid towards her, spittle flying from his dark lips as he screamed her name.
    And then there was a crack, and another crack, and four hundred pounds of Jackboot Moran broke through the ice and plunged into the frigid waters of a Connecticut pond. Jackboot’s hammer sank with him, and as the cold embraced him and pulled him down, so did something else.

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